The Okie Chess ‘Festival’ really lived up to its name this year and as an organizer I was happy to see a celebrative diversity of events and players:
o the U.S. Senior Open, with one of the strongest lineups of experienced players in its history,
o the 1st U.S. Women’s Open, an experimental and popular event,
o the 5th annual Master Invitational, featuring many young players and future GMs in a hard-fought round robin,
o the 5th annual Okie Open, a Fischer-Random event, and even some Pot Limit Omaha.

Here are games, results, and stories from these Labor Day Weekend events played at the Trade Winds Central in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and sponsored by IA Frank K. Berry.
Master Invitational
This year’s round robin finished in a 3-way tie between FM Conrad Holt of Kansas, IM Bryan Smith of Pennsylvania, and IM Ray Kaufman of Virginia. They each won $534. All of the players were about in their 20s or younger and provided a colorful contrast to the Senior Open going on in the next room.

It isn’t hard to imagine that we are seeing some future GMs in action here, such as this last-round encounter between 13-year-old Darwin Yang and 15-year-old Holt. A victory would have given Holt clear first, but he was unable to win a pawn-up bishop endgame, and nearly threw it away in time trouble.

Last year’s winner, IM Bryan Smith, found the going tougher this time, unable to convert some advantageous positions and losing a game to tough FM Michael Langer. For example, Holt put up a determined defense against him in an interesting French Winawer:

Ray Kaufman, traveling here with his Dad (GM Larry), needed a little luck to make the winner’s circle, defeating former Denker Champion Nelson Lopez from a lost position with a truly vicious double-check in time trouble.

Perhaps realizing his luck was running hot, Ray multiplied his winnings within hours after the tournament by moseying over to the nearby River Spirit Casino, where he won $1800 playing Pot Limit Omaha “against some crazy Asians.” Combine that with his winning the Fischer-Random blitz event, and Ray said he took home over $2500 this weekend. But he didn’t always need luck to win, of course, as shown in this nice endgame attack against Yang:

U.S. Women’s Open
This experimental first Women’s Open featured 10 players rated over 2000 and provided another congenial counterpoint to the variety of the festival. It is such a pleasure to have lots of women players around a large event and once again several discussions erupted about how we can encourage more participation by women in tournaments beyond scholastics. The post-scholastic membership “dropout rate” among girls is incredibly high, and I know is of special interest of new USCF Vice President Ruth Haring (who was playing in the Senior!).

This event was an intriguing mixture of talented young girls (such as Margeret Hua and Joanna Gossell) and more experienced young women players, a large contingent of whom came from UTD (headed by Bayaraa Zorigt (2276) and Karina Vazirova (2104)) to join top-ranked Iryna Zenyuk (2280), a brilliant graduate student at Carnagie-Mellon University in Pittsburg, and the ever-popular Chouchanik Airapetian (2142) of Seattle and Alexey Root (2000) of Dallas.

I asked some of the younger girls what it felt like to play in a women-only event with players of different ages, a rather rare experience outside of the championship or scholastic realms. They all said it was more pleasant because there was less of that hard-to-define tension that exists in mixed events; perhaps less testosterone or aggression. (Although having played both Zenyuk and Airapetian, I can testify there was a heck of a lot of aggression coming from their side of the board!)

Vying for a spot in the prestigious U.S. Women’s Championship in 2010, the tournament was very hard fought. A case in point is this pivotal round 5 game in which 5th-ranked Saheli Nath (2026) of UTD upset Zenyuk in a Dragon. It was awarded the $100 Best Game Prize donated by Oklahoma’s well-known USCF Forum cowboy, Harry Payne.

Saheli Nath won the trophy with a fine 5-1 score after drawing with Jennifer Acon in the final round. Since she is from India, however, the 2010 championship slot was awarded to Iryna Zenyuk, who finished in clear second place.

Nath,Saheli
(2107) - Zenyuk,Iryna (2280)

This was the
critical game of the 1st U.S. Women's Open and was awarded the Best Game Prize
of $100 donated by Harry Payne, of Oklahoma.1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4
4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 Nc6 8.Qd2 0-0 9.0-0-0 Nxd4 10.Bxd4 Be6
11.Kb1! This is a known subtlety that allows White now to meet 11...Qa5
with the strong 12. Nd5!, and is why Black's choice of ...Nxd4 and ...Be6 is
not the main line of theory.
11...Nd7!?
Normal is 11...Qc7 12.g4 Rfc8
13.h4 Qa5 losing a tempo in order to get in the counter-attacking move Qa5. 12.Bxg7
Kxg7 13.Nd5
13.h4 Qa5 14.h5 also looks good. Then 14...g5!? 15.g3
intending f3-f4 looks dangerous.13...Bxd5 14.exd5 f6!?
It's hard to
find a viable defensive setup for Black. 14...Rc8!? 15.h4 (15.Qd4+ Nf6
16.Qxa7 Rc5 might be a playable pawn sac for Black.) 15...Nf6 16.h5
with a typical strong attack for White.15.h4 Rc8 16.f4 Rc5 17.h5± Nb6
18.hxg6 hxg6 19.f5!The attack on d5 is not enough to distract White!19...Rh8
19...g5 20.Qe2 Qe8 21.Rd3 Rxd5 22.Rdh3 is presumably too much.20.Bd3 Rxd5
It's probably better to try to keep White's pieces out with 20...Rxh1
21.Rxh1 g5 when it is still a problem for White to find a breakthrough.21.fxg6
Nd7 22.g4! Nc5 23.Qg2 Rd4
It looks bad to allow white g4-g5, but if
23...Rg5 24.Bf5 is strong, i.e. 24...e6 25.Rxh8 Qxh8 26.Rh1 Qg8 27.Qh2+-24.g5
fxg5
24...Rdh4 may be the last chance, although 25.gxf6+ exf6 26.Qd5 Qe7
27.Rhe1 Qc7 28.Bf5 looks close to winning, doubling on the e-file.25.Qxg5
e5 26.Rh7+! 1-0

Saheli Nath and Iryna Zenyuk

I was asked to make some comments on the controversial ruling that occurred during the first round of this event. The FIDE time control of Game in 90 with 30 seconds increment per move is one that I personally like, but which does have some problematic aspects. FIDE (and I guess the USCF too) consider in the rules that players using this time control must continue to keep score even in time trouble under 5 minutes. This is because 30 seconds is considered plenty of time to write down your moves, and thus a complete scoresheet is required to win on time even in this sudden-death time control. IA Frank Berry has enforced that rule in the past (such as during an incident at last year’s U.S. Championship Qualifier). But this assumption, however, isn’t always true. At this year’s events for example we had players in their 80s, some of whom were half-blind, partially deaf or handicapped; and it is not true that 30-seconds is plenty of time for them. There also were some very young kids here who can’t handle the scorekeeping that quickly. Chief TD Frank Berry agreed and stated at the opening ceremony that he wasn’t going to require this rule and instead would allow players in time trouble to hand off their scoresheet to an assistant TD or spectator to continue scorekeeping. Unfortunately, this was not well communicated and led to some confusion in the first round, and one case in which a player overstepped on time aware that her opponent wasn’t keeping score, and the opponent thought she didn’t have to keep score in time trouble, etc. Frank wasn’t present at the time, and later on appeal declared the game a draw, which was acceptable to both players. I think this rule needs to be reconsidered by FIDE and USCF. Even under ideal circumstances with 30 seconds players start scribbling their moves in time trouble and they the scoresheet often becomes an unreadable mess.

Despite this small glitch the 1st U.S. Women’s Open was considered a success by the players and should hopefully continue as one way to encourage more post-scholastic female tournament participation.
U.S. Senior Open — Make Room for the Boom!
This year’s championship was the strongest in several years and I think is a harbinger of things to come in the Senior ranks now that Fischer Boom players start to pass 50 and become eligible. 52-year-old GM Larry Christiansen (who actually was already a strong player before Fischer-Spassky in 1972) is one example. GM John Fedorowicz (51) was also signed up to play but withdrew at the last minute (Larry speculated he must have scored some Yankees tickets). Soon we may be seeing DeFirmian, Rohde, and others of that great chess generation admitting they are officially seniors in order to be able to compete again at top levels and to try for an otherwise hard-to-get slot in the U.S. Championship.

Christiansen won the tournament with 5.5/6, topping a 54-player field that included such famous players as GM Larry Kaufman (defending champion), GM Boris Gulko, IM Joe Bradford, IM Walter Shipman, and many other strong and enthusiastic contestants.

What I found intriguing about this event was the camaraderie of the players. It’s a little bit like what I imagine a reunion of old army buddies might be like decades after the war. In some cases active players meet yet again with old rivals they’ve played dozens of times, and in other cases players are paired who last played together decades ago. For example, I played Christiansen in round 2. The last time I played him was in the 6th round of the 1980 Southwest Open, 29 years ago!

Christiansen wins a slot in next year’s U.S. Championship for his effort. Kaufman finished in clear 2nd place with 5-1, and as the top scorer over 60 wins the official USCF slot in the World Senior Championship coming up in Italy in October, which includes a stipend for expenses from its organizers. However, since Larry is also the defending World Senior Champ and is receiving some considerations for that, it may be that his slot can go to the next finisher over 60, Michael Schemm (1974) of Washington, who had a great tournament and outscored Gulko for this slot! The USCF is looking into the details of this, but perhaps both of them will be able to go.

Round 5 was the turning point for this event, with “the two Larrys” defeating Bradford and Gulko, with Black, to take the lead:

Kaufman used a TN discovered by his protégé’ Rybka. Gulko responded with an exchange sac but after a few ups and downs Larry came out on top:

These games will be presented with full annotations in the upcoming Chess Life article on the event.

Having already drawn each other, both leaders were paired down in the final round. Christiansen defeated Gregory Markzon, but Kaufman got nowhere in an ending against veteran IM Walter Shipman (who had a great tournament). Shipman’s been playing endings since his first U.S. Championship in 1948 and won several nice ones here.

For the first time in several years this event had a schedule of two games per day instead of the usual one, which did not sit well with some of the players such as 87-year-old Dan Mayers who need the more leisurely pace. On the other hand, with three fewer days other potential players were able to afford the time or money to come that wouldn’t be able to otherwise. It’s a trade off, and perhaps future Senior tournaments should experiment with compromise schedules, such as 6 games in 4 days.
Age Category Awards for the Senior:
50-54 - Yefim Treger (53)
55-59 - Joe Bradford (58)
60-64 - Michael Schemm (62) (ahead of Gulko!)
65-69 - Denis Strenzwilk (68)
70-74 - Dr. Jorge Montero (72)
75+ - Walter Shipman, (80) except he refused the award, saying he doesn't believe in age categories.
Fischer-Random Speed Chess
Our annual “Fischer-Random Speed Chess Pizza Bash” was won by IM Ray Kaufman with 6.5/8 over a very tough field of 20 players, mostly masters and experts. WIM Bayaraa Zorigt and FM Conrad Holt tied for 2nd place with 6/8.

The two Kaufman’s ponder their back ranks before a Fischer-Random game.

If you’ve never played Fischer-Random (also called “Chess 960” in Europe), give it a try; it’s great fun. It’s regular chess with the starting position of the pieces “randomized” on the back rank. It feels normal and the only thing weird about it is how castling works … the king can castle despite starting out on b1 or f1 or wherever. The next day in the main event Michael Langer’s black king had been checked over to g8 by Conrad Holt, hemming in his rook on h8. Michael remarked to me, “I must be playing too much Fischer-Random chess; I keep thinking about castling now with Rf8!”

The Okie Chess Festival and related tournaments were all handled by Chief Director, IA Frank K. Berry, who also generously sponsored the prize funds. He was ably assisted by Rob Jones and Steve Wharry. It was organized by myself. The Fischer-Random was directed by Mike Crockett. Special thanks to the Trade Winds Central staff for their extra hospitality. We’ll see you again next year!
See the official website here and the U.S. Chess Scoop featuring the Senior.